The Modern World

My Alsace is one of the most beautiful children's histories ever written. Would that all history texts children encounter were this richly illustrated and written with as much heart. My own training is in History; I very highly recommend this book.

Sample illustration from My Alsace

Here's the background story:

Alsace is a region in the east of today’s France that has changed hands four times between France and Germany during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. When Hansi (born Jean-Jacques Waltz) was born in 1873, it had been two years since the Prussian army marched into Alsace, and the province remained under German annexation until the end of World War I.

Hansi recalled his years at the German school in Colmar as among the worst of his life. Above all, he hated the history lessons, in which the teacher forced the French students to learn about Prussian conquests and the defeat and humiliation of French Alsace.

In 1912, Hansi decided to write his own history of Alsace for children. He wanted to show them how much pride they could have in their past and to hear the story from their own side. His history portrays Alsace from the time when the Celts ruled the land through Middle Ages, the Age of Revolution and the German occupation through World War I. It is notable that Alsace is the birthplace/home of St. Odile, a saint often studied in Waldorf Education. My Alsace offers a beautiful, concise portrait of Alsace at the time of St. Odile.

The first edition was published in Paris with great success. However, because of its satirical gibes at all things German, Hansi was given a heavy fine and a warning from the German authorities in Colmar. Soon after, he was sentenced to a year in prison for “insulting the German officer corps.”

The present book is a hand-picked selection of L’Histoire d’Alsace and L’Alsace Heureuse by Hansi. It is full of his trademark colorful and detailed pictures of Alsatian life, as well as his critical and humorous portrayals of the occupying Germans.

(Ages 8–101)

The Age of Revolution

Charles Kovacs

An overview of world history from the eighteenth to twentieth centuries, including the French, American and Industrial Revolutions

Kovacs chooses pertinent stories which create a tapestry showing the development of humankind from medieval times, when every person had their place in the hierarchy of society, to the awakening of individuality in modern times.

My original training was in history, particularly this period of history, and in my opinion these portraits Kovacs paints of the key events and people of those times are masterful. He captures not only the elements at play which have formed our own present day, but breathes life into them so that the players can be seen as also human, both heroically and in their frailty. Students and teachers will love these tales -- and learn an enormous amount about the history of this period.

All Sail Set

Armstrong Sperry

The gripping and authentic yarn of a race 'round the Horn onboard the greatest clipper ever built - The Flying Cloud

This would also be a great accompanying novel for the Waldorf history block covering the industrial revolution, ages 12-13.

If ever there was a story of adventure on the high seas that we would want to share with the young people around us, this is it. The subtitle is as accurate as they come -- the adventure captures our imagination and holds it fast; the descriptions of sailing aboard a clipper ship are so accurate your young reader will be qualified to sign on as a deck hand before the story ends.

Sperry takes us back to the days when Clipper Ships transformed the world with their amazing speed (only 90 days to sail around the whole world!) and the race against time was a race toward a new modern world.

Here is the story of Enoch Thacher, a boy whose father lost his fortune at sea, goes to work for Donald McKay (who really existed and built an entire line of great clippers). McKay takes him on during the lofting, building, and rigging of the The Flying Cloud. Enoch finally ships out on her for her maiden, record-breaking trip around the Horn. Sperry's vigorous drawings are the perfect accompaniment to this realistic, riveting narrative of iron men and wooden ships. Even landlubbers will be pegged to their seats as they read.

Amstrong Sperry, author of All Sail Set created some of the very best historical novels written in English. That they were written for young people is almost icing on the cake -- what a terrific way to share the life of the past with young minds! Well researched, well written, and real page-turners -- good juvenile literature just doesn't get much better than this.

Wagons Westward is among the best such novels -- it will give you a whiff of what the journey along the Santa Fe Trail must have been like in 1846; and how a restless America managed to add much of the Southwest to its expanding territory. The young hero, Jonathan Starbuck, faces and overcomes many challenges along the untamed trail -- and through his eyes we find ourselves travelling right alongside these determined pioneers. The author's spirited drawings just make this good story even better.

This collection includes essays by Thornton Wilder, Linda Williams, Henry Barnes, Dorit Winter, David Mitchell, David Adams, John Wulsin, and others who explore the spiritual nature of America—its mythology, geography, architecture, art, music, literature, and education. It is of value to every teacher at every grade level in North America.

Areas covered include:

Mythology

Geography

Music, Art, and Literature

Immigration

Education

More Riddles

Some of the essays included are:

Awakening Spiritual Consciousness through Legend: The Legend of Huitzilopochtli

Oklahoma and Texas

Reflections on Early Sacred Music of New England

The Birth of American Literature: The Altering of the Early American Mind

Emily Dickenson

Immigrant Contributions: las contribuciones de los emigrantes

Waldorf Education in North America - The Curriculum and the Folk Spirit